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Monday, 14 September 2015

My children have so many activities that they love to do, but two of their most popular ones are football and eating! So after racking our brains of how to keep them entertained for yet another rainy summers day, it seemed the perfect decision to combine these activities together and visit the new Cafe Football restaurant in Manchester, located within Hotel Football, right next to the Old Trafford football stadium.The restaurant itself, is nicely presented, with numerous television screens so that you can keep upto date with all the football. We particularly loved the wallpaper by the seats that was like a recreation of the premier league sticker book entries.

The seats were comfy, and it has a great view overlooking the Old Trafford Stadium.
On arrival we were warmly welcomed and seated, and the children were provided with their own menus which doubled up as activity sheets. I love it when restaurants and cafes do this as my daughter always gets quite flustered when ordering so when you can write on them she likes to tick off what she will be ordering to help her. They also featured a colouring sheet on the reverse and a wordsearch puzzle to keep kids entertained whilst waiting for their meal. The childrens menu is nicely laid out with easy to read text and graphics, and features a lovely selection of meals.

The waiter came over straight away, and was really friendly and chatty. It is always nice and welcoming when staff make an effort to talk to the kids. He seemed really enthusiastic and came across as loving his job which again just adds to the nice friendly atmosphere there. He took our drinks orders whilst we took some time to look over the menu and came back promptly with what can only be described as "the nicest milkshakes ever" according to the kids. They came presented in a small milk bottle, and the kids loved the quirkiness of them!

The main menu itself, is themed around football match favourites and features a lovely selection of meals to suit all tastes. I have fond memories of going to matches with my dad as a child, and we would always get a steak & kidney pudding and chips smothered in gravy. To my delight this was offered on the menu as Scholesys meal and so this was exactly what I ordered. The boys in the family opted for the burgers, which came nicely presented in ceramic versions of burger trays and my daughter went for the fish finger sandwich which she said was delicious.

My only very minor criticisms would be more in relation to their website as opposed to the actual restaurant. Firstly, there doesn't seem to be clear instructions as to wear to park. We drove around a few times before asking one of the Manchester United stewards who kindly directed us to a car park located across the road behind the adjacent Premier Inn hotel. If you are local and know the area then it is probably really easy to find, however having travelled from North Wales and not knowing the area well, we did have to drive round a couple of times in heavy traffic to find this.Secondly the kids menu isn't featured on the website. I always like to plan ahead and see what is available in a restaurant beforehand and make sure that there are meals that my children will like and enjoy, in addition to getting a good idea as to how much it will cost. However in saying this, I would like to add that the social media team on facebook and twitter, along with the staff at the hotel & restaurant are very responsive to any queries and will quickly answer any questions you may have, and I am sure they would be more than happy to email a copy over if asked.

Unfortunately, we didn't have the chance to have a look around the hotel, so I cannot comment much on that, however I believe it has a rooftop pitch which my son would absolutely love, and based on our experience in the restaurant alone we will definitely be returning the next time we manage to get tickets to a match. My children have already been asking when we can go back for a meal, so when we do return we will aim to make a weekend of it!For further information and to download the menus, The Cafe Football website can be found here.... Cafe FootballOur Top Tip....We visited at 12 noon on a non match day and it was reasonably quiet, however I can imagine that it would be very full in the evenings, weekends and on match days and would therefore recommend booking in advance where possible to avoid any disappointment.I hope that you have enjoyed our review and should you have any questions then please feel free to add a comment below and I will be happy to assist as best I can. I would also love to hear comments from others who have visited the restaurant or stayed at the hotel, so please feel free to share your experiences with us in the comments.Disclaimer. All opinions are my own and this review has been written based upon my own experience. I have not received any monetary payment in exchange for this review and it was written of my own accord to share information regarding our visit. Information was correct at time of visiting in August 2015 but is subject to change and I would always recommend visiting the restaurants own website for the most up to date information.

Thursday, 3 September 2015

Well its the end of the summer holidays, so for the kids and my husband that means back to school, and for me, its back to work!
We visited some fantastic attractions, restaurants and shows over the holidays and I cannot wait to share our blog posts on some of these very soon. We had a wonderful summer, and we are very lucky as a family to be able to spend the holidays together every year thanks to our jobs.
I hope all my readers have had a fab time too and I look forward to hearing and reading about what you have all been up to.
Very soon we will also be launching our first competition so keep your eyes peeled for that, and we also have some great product reviews coming soon too.
Until then, I wanted to share a picture of my children ready to go back to school yesterday, they were very excited to be returning to their new classes!